On Pilgrimage

 We were at the Pasargad again- this time as members of the gang that ran the now defunct Death Cafe. 

The Muslim couple (British Indians) had been on pilgrimage since we'd seen them last- on the desert route between the Imam Ali shrine in Karbala and the Imam Husayn shrine in Najaf (both in modern-day Iraq).  All along the way, they said, local people came out of their villages to offer free hospitality to the pilgrims.  They traveled in a group of over a hundred with a couple of English-speaking Imams acting as guides. In Najaf, they saw not only the tomb of Husayn but also the tombs of Adam and Noah. Is there anything quite like this in the Christian world? I don't believe there is. 

We parted with a resolution to meet up again in December. I hope we do....

Four Centuries WorthOf Falstaffs

 The Globe Theatre has posted clips of Roger Allam as Falstaff. He's very good.

And I love how the configuration of the Globe allows for the big speeches- the ones where the character is thinking aloud- to be delivered at the audience- almost as if they were in conversation- which I think must have been how they were done in Shakespeare's day.

But

In the comments people are bandying about the phrase "greatest of all time" and that always makes me bristle.

In this case "all time" is a matter of well over four hundred years. How can we possibly know which of the noted Falstaffs- from Kempe to McKellen- carries off the palm?

Within living memory Ralph Richardson and Anthony Quayle have made the role their own. More recently we've had great Falstaffs from Simon Russell Beale and Anthony Sher....

And then there's Orson Welles' magisterial performance in Chimes at Midnight- the greatest Shakespearian movie ever made.....